Geothermal
Energy is one of the most important
resources for generating
electricity in this world in the near future.
Geothermal energy is an important resource in volcanically active places such as Iceland and New Zealand.
How useful it is depends on how hot the water gets. This depends on how hot the rocks were to start with, and how much water we pump down to them. Water is pumped down an "injection well", filters through the cracks in the rocks in the hot region, and comes back up the "recovery well" under pressure. It "flashes" into
steam when it reaches the surface. The steam may be used to drive a turbo generator, or passed through a
heat exchanger to heat water to warm houses. A town in Iceland is heated this way.
The United States alone produces 2700 megawatts of electricity from geothermal energy, electricity comparable to burning sixty million barrels of oil each year and all over the world it is 7000.
Advantages
Geothermal power
plants, like wind and solar power plants do not have to burn fuels to manufacture steam to turn the turbines. Generating electricity with geothermal energy helps to conserve nonrenewable fossil fuels, and by decreasing the use of these fuels, we reduce emissions that harm our atmosphere. There is no smoky air around geothermal power plants -- in fact some are built in the middle of farm crops and forests, and share land with cattle and local wildlife.
It helps grow flowers, vegetables, and other crops in greenhouses while snow-drifts pile up outside. To shorten the time needed for growing fish, shrimp, abalone and alligators to maturity.
How much energy is available
Much of the world is underlain (3-6 miles down), by hot dry rock - no water, but lots of heat. Scientists in the U.S.A., Japan, England, France, Germany and Belgium have experimented with piping water into this deep hot rock to create more hydrothermal resources for use in geothermal power plants. As drilling technology improves, allowing us to drill much deeper, geothermal energy from hot dry rock could be available anywhere. At such time, we will be able to tap the true potential of the enormous heat resources of the earth's crust.